The giant wakes up? Apple has both shaken and stirred the tech industry with its custom designed M1 processor, and it seems that Microsoft could be doing the same.
As in, the software giant could be working on its own custom silicon for Surface devices.
Interestingly, this is not the first time we are hearing about Microsoft jumping into the silicon game.
Back in December 2020, Bloomberg indicated that the company was designing its own chips for servers and its flagship Surface PCs. A more recent report claimed that the firm might team up with AMD for a custom ARM based processor for Windows PCs.
But this latest job listing that was posted on September 3, is our clearest indication yet of this possibility.
Redmond is seeking someone to work on the Surface team to light up Microsoft experiences with the next generation of devices. Creating those devices involves, what the company says, a close partnership between silicon, hardware and software engineers, designers, and manufacturing.
Furthermore, the role entails defining the features and capabilities of SoC used on Surface devices.
The chips are aligning, then?
Of course, you may be well aware that Redmond already teamed up with Qualcomm on the SQ1 and SQ2 chips found in the Surface Pro X. But the performance of these processors was nowhere near what Apple managed with the M1 chip.
Microsoft is more than capable of developing its own chips for Surface. More so, now that Surface boss Panos Panay is now in charge of both hardware and software.
Windows could well use a little spark like this, so this is something truly worth keeping an eye on.
